What have you done today bee-related?

[JoJo36]

air freshener definitely works as it seems to confuse them with the 'funny' smell and eventually they settle down accepting anything you put in??!!

[Alfred]

Bit of an odd one today but still relative.
Got a swarm call and when I got there there was a caste size cluster under the gutter.
I got them in the box and put it on the porch roof but the flyers were having none of it.
A bit further up the ladder and I saw the gutter and the downpipe choked with bees.I got them up in the air and was able to smoke the ironwork and it appeared to work,but I could hear a lot of bees in the soffit.
It was getting warm so I had to pack up and leave them to it.
Some passing natives told me there were bees in the chimney two doors down the arrived 10 mins earlier.
There was also a couple of hundred dead bees on the pathway.
The owner phoned about two hours later saying the air was full of bees again but phoned again to say they had clustered on the correx box.
I drove past on the way to work tonight and the box was clear of bees but ther were flyers around the gutter again.
I'm going back at stupid o'clock in the morning to see.
I'm thinking the bees in the correx tried to reswarm but the qx on the entrance disc made them return.
All the dead bees suggest there was a Punch up which could mean there is also a queen in the soffit.Maybee the bees two doors down had tried to join the gutter colony?
Either way I will have bad news for him when I tell him is now a pest control job.

[JoJo36]

So multiculturalism doesn't work with bees either??!!

[Alfred]

With their drunken 3am karaoke parties I'd like to kill my neighbours too
Council are far more open minded about it though.

[JoJo36]

Of course they are because they get generous cash payments for them and they themselves don't have to live near them I suspect??!! Karaoke at 3am are you kidding??!!
Everybody will be blasé when they are unaffected by the problem!!

[AdamD]

Bit of an odd one today but still relative.
Got a swarm call and when I got there there was a caste size cluster under the gutter.
I got them in the box and put it on the porch roof but the flyers were having none of it.
A bit further up the ladder and I saw the gutter and the downpipe choked with bees.I got them up in the air and was able to smoke the ironwork and it appeared to work,but I could hear a lot of bees in the soffit.
It was getting warm so I had to pack up and leave them to it.
Some passing natives told me there were bees in the chimney two doors down the arrived 10 mins earlier.
There was also a couple of hundred dead bees on the pathway.
The owner phoned about two hours later saying the air was full of bees again but phoned again to say they had clustered on the correx box.
I drove past on the way to work tonight and the box was clear of bees but ther were flyers around the gutter again.
I'm going back at stupid o'clock in the morning to see.
I'm thinking the bees in the correx tried to reswarm but the qx on the entrance disc made them return.
All the dead bees suggest there was a Punch up which could mean there is also a queen in the soffit.Maybee the bees two doors down had tried to join the gutter colony?
Either way I will have bad news for him when I tell him is now a pest control job.

If you can get the queen in a box with a queen excluder over the entrance, the bees will generally find her - you'll see it after a few minutes where the bees start fanning their nasnov glands to call in the remaining bees. If there's no queen in the box, they will usually leave.

I had a swarm collection earlier this year - a pile of alive bees on the path and a load around the top if a down-pipe and under the roof. I got the bees from the path - they entered a box with an old brood frame and did actually stay and there was no queen. I could not get the others although they looked like they were not settled, so maybe they didn't have a queen and disappeared.

[AdamD]

They do indeed accept a different queen. It is my go to method for requeening 'orrible hives. I stick the hive with the good queen next door to Mrs horrible, then move mrs horrible. to elsewhere. If really horrible queen and all the brood gets destroyed, no point prolonging the bad girls. Then it's either a shake out or newspaper/air freshener unite depending on circumstances.

The hive that needs a new queen isn't horrible but is not as good as the other colonies in the apiary, so an opportunity to change the queen if the bees are already thinking about swarming. My plan will therefore be to move the brood boxes to one side and place a new brood box with the new queen on the old site, pop the queen excluder and supers on top and leave them be. After a week or so when the new queen has been accepted, I can look at the colony with the old queen and remove her and put the two brood boxes on top of the supers on the original site. (I might be able to bring it down to one brood box on top by shuffling frames about). Then check for and destroy any queencells in the top brood box. The frames are quite old, so an opportunity to take them out of service once the brood has emerged.
I could possibly just dump the two brood boxes without queen on top but if the new queen is killed, I will have a large queenless colony which I don't want. Better to take smaller steps.

[Alfred]

Given up on bees for a few days at least
Collected the swarm- looks like they were all in there- a lot of bees.
Housed them in a national and all seemed ok .
Went up to the other patch and tipped out a drone laying box They objected and the whole site went nuts I had to leave.
Came back to check on the swarm and it looks like they are off again.
Swarmy to start with and not going to chage

Gave up and went for a brew onl y to .find the barn door hanging off and chainsaws mowers you name it all gone.
Add the lack of a weeks proper sleep and I've had enough now

[JoJo36]

Blimey Alfred that crap to say the least!!
Sounds like you need to set up a camp bed in the barn to catch the feral scumbags nicking your stuff in future with a shotgun to scare them off by your side??!!
At least you may get some shut eye there and lack of sleep is definitely wearing day in and ay out for sure!!
I really hope you catch them and more importantly get some sleep, maybe a few beers to help drop off??!!

[NigelP]

Really sorry to hear of that Alfred.
What a pain.